FF1 FANTASTIC 4: Galactus vs Death
by Dan Bivens
Summary: Galactus, the Devourer or Worlds, is one of the forces of the universe. Death is another. What would happen if Death tried to claim her brother Galactus? Who would win? [Read before MOVIES: THE FANTASTIC 4: EARTHBOUND]
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Galactus awoke. The Planet-Eater. The Devourer of Worlds.

He knew not where he was. He knew not how he came to come here. He knew only one important thing: he was no longer aching with...The Hunger!

"Where has the great Galactus been brought?" said his god-like voice in a featureless realm so unlike any the more than 13 billion year old giant in purple had seen. A thunderous, reverberant voice demanding attention. Demanding answers.

He would be, for the first time in untold ages, surprised at the source of said answers...

"Death!"

Slowly solidifying into a form long feared by beings throughout the known universe, that of an eerily active skeleton clothed in flowing black hooded robe, Death turned eyeless sockets to stare deeply, fearlessly into the glowing cosmic cube-eyes of mighty Galactus.

"Galactus!," said Death, currently as massively tall as the Planet-Eater, in a voice that could freeze a mere mortal's soul while only amusing such as Galactus. "How are you, brother? Confused? Have you ever been so before?"

"I will admit, sister, that I was, for the span of a single heartbeat, disoriented! Clearly I am no longer in the space-time to which I have been accustomed since this universe's birth! I can only deduce, most especially since you have deigned to appear before me here...now...that I have, in some manner not immediately conceivable to my vast space-spanning mind, entered into a state of corporeal nonexistence!" Galactus said sarcastically when addressing what had, since the moment of his miraculous rebirth as the third force of the universe, been ostensibly his closest living, albeit cosmic, relative along with the embodiments of Eternity, Infinity, and, of course, Oblivion.

"You died, Galactus!" was Death's only cosmically blistering reply. "Do you not remember?"

"Vaguely!" said Galactus, as he willed his gargantuan form to drift closer to the hooded-and-robed skeletal specter of immutable, never-changing, ever-present Death.

As Galactus drifted closer still, Death stood her ground, a state of understanding more than fact in such a featureless realm, and said, "Your former herald, the Silver Surfer, waited until you were, quite literally, starving for life-energy and, then, just as you were desperate to appease The Hungry, turned your own Elemental Converter on you! And, thus...!"

"I consumed myself!"

"Exactly, Galactus, now why not take my hand so that I can guide you out of this cosmic limbo?" Death said with an eerie laugh, while lifting a single cloaked arm and exposed skeletal hand in a beckoning fashion that would, with any mortal entity, freeze them with fear, yet which still only amused such as Galactus.

For one brief instant, as far as "instants" could be measured against the immeasurable, Galactus started to take hold of the only hand in all of existence from which, once touched, there would be no reprieve nor escape. But, just then, the majesty which was the mind and soul of Galactus resurfaced with a vengeance.

"No!"

That single syllable utterance was enough to, for the first time in endless ages, force Death to withdraw. Her own cosmic senses detecting Galactus' desire to exist as a physical force of nature once more. Surrounded by a physical space-time universe. A universe within which, like it or not, he must inevitably feed. Upon worlds without end. Energy without end. He would, once again, be forced to endure The Hunger.

Yet Galactus would do so, gladly, in order to become eternally physical once again.

"Not even such as you can deny Death!" said the hooded-and-robed entity in a rage such as she had seldom experienced. "Not even the great Galactus can undo my handiwork!"

Suddenly, something happened that had not since Galactus was known by his mere mortal name of Galan on the planet Taa in a mere mortal existence just prior to the universe's 'Big Crunch' demise...he smiled.

"If that is a challenge, dearest Death," his cosmic voice rumbled, "I accept!"

END OF CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

"You cannot win, brother!"

Death's thundered words rolled through the featureless realm identified, by this skeletal specter, as a "cosmic limbo". To mere mortals, the very sight of the robed and hooded skeleton, whose merest touch would make the sudden cessation of life a foregone conclusion, was enough to chill the soul. Let alone the indescribable sound of Death's voice.

But, then, Galactus was no mere mortal. Not for over 13 billion years. Once he had been a flesh-and-blood man by the name of Galan. Once he lived from day to day, taking joy in the paradise world of Taa. Then came the day no mortal mind could comprehend: the approaching end of the seemingly infinite cosmos in what many have called, quite quaintly: the "Big Crunch".

Galactus, as Galan, had realized that with all of space-and-time about to fall in upon itself, there was naught to lose in choosing one last act of bravery. With some like-minded individuals from Taa, one of their mighty starships, such as what their super-advanced, unbelievably ancient race had used to fully explore all that was, would be taken straight into the very heart of the "Big Crunch"...the End of Everything.

Long ago, his peerless race's scientists knew that the universe's demise would eventually lead to the birth of another. With luck, Galan and his fellow Taans would try to survive in order to emerge into that new universe. To be reborn along with space, time, matter, and energy. Not because they wished to be gods in the new cosmos nor conquerors, but simply to see to it that all they ever were, over the long stretch of time, would not cease to be.

Pride, indeed, would go before a fall.

The recollections of what had happened to him, as Galan, within what many called the Cosmic Egg stage that existed between one "Big Crunch" and the next "Big Bang," even in light of The Hunger, rushed in upon his near-omnipotent/omniscient mind, the great Devourer of Worlds understood. And it angered him.

And anger was something else he had not experienced in a very long time.

END OF CHAPTER 2


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

"You dare!" Galactus said with such force that, had they been in normal space-time, the otherwise soundless force would've been enough to decimate an entire solar system. And it was enough force to cause Death to, once again, drift further away.

"What did you expect, Galactus?" asked Death as her voice carried a hint of pride. And pride was yet another mortal convention that did not, or at the very least should not, apply to such as she.

Death knew she was as necessary to Life as she was Eternal. Death knew that even such as Galactus must recognize the truth. Recognize it. Accept it. Embrace it. "All who taste finality do so with the full remembrance of whence they came, Galactus! Of whom they had been! You are no different!"

Refusing to hear any more, Galactus shouted, "I am Galactus! I am as necessary to the universe as you, Death! I shall not allow you to take me like some sniveling transitory creature! I survived the decay and destruction of the previous cosmos! I shall exist until the imminent demise of this one! Who knows? Perhaps I shall live into the next newly born universe still!"

"Great Galactus," Death said with a shake of her hooded skull, "I did not wish it to come to this...it has never come to this before, in all the billions of years I have existed to usher the dead and dying from one level of energy-existence to another! I shall use the power cosmic...to obliterate you utterly!"

"Speak not to me of the power cosmic, Death!" roared Galactus as he held out his mighty gloved hands in order to gather in whatever energies permeated this featureless realm as easily as a man might gather fruit brought forth by trees and good weather. "I have mastered such in ways not even you can imagine! Behold!"

"Noooooo!"

END OF CHAPTER 3


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Even as Death, for the first time ever, shouted in such pained incredulity, twin bolts of star-shattering cosmic power, crackling with the energy of Creation itself, lashed out to impact with the skeletal specter. Sustained at what could have been a mere moment...or could have been an infinitude of Time.

As much a force as Galactus, Death managed to erect, from the same cosmic energy as Galalctus' attack, an impermeable shield that both absorbed and diverted the blasts, even though such came at a cost of pure pain she had never before experienced...and never wished to experience again.

"You shall pay for your arrogance, Galactus!"

No sooner said than acted upon, Death aimed fleshless hands in the direction of Galactus, who, instinctively, had paused for the shortest of seconds. It would be a pause for which the Planet Eater would pay in an agony that rivaled The Hunger. An agony such as he had long since learned to withstand.

"Try as you might, dearest Death, you can never dominate or destroy me! I, however, may very well destroy you! Prepare to become...extinct!" Galactus said through tightly clenched teeth, positioning gloved hands in such a fashion as to erect a similar shield born of the power cosmic.

So great was the exchange of energies, beyond the ken of mortal minds, powerful enough to rend whole galaxies into torn strands of stars, that the cosmic limbo itself threatened to end in an eruption of purest destruction. Destruction matched only by the shredding of stellar bodies by a "black hole" singularity.

Still, with mutual destruction in the offing, a destruction guaranteed to send all of space-and-time and Life spiraling off into a chasm from which none of the countless trillions-upon-trillions-upon-trillions of sentient beings could hope to survive.

And that could never be allowed.

"Hold, brother and sister!"

So incredibly, unbelievably, indescribably, immortally momentous was the cosmic voice which now trumpeted, that its sheer concussion sent both cosmic combatants soaring in opposite directions within this featureless domain. Like rag dolls thrust away violently, forcefully, angrily by a much larger, much stronger being.

"Eternity!" Death said lividly as an entity larger than the two of them slowly emerged from the mists of nowhere. An entity composed of galaxies and stars and noble gasses, yet with the form of what most would consider humanoid. Head, torso, arms, legs, hands. Hands which now reached out to its cosmic siblings.

"Death, Galalctus," Eternity continued with authority, "your contest of wills, of sheer cosmic power, threatens not only each of you, but all the physical entities I encompass! This cannot be! Both of you are correct in your basic assumptions...Death, you are not one to be denied...Galactus, you are, indeed, an important force and there could very well be dire consequences should you accompany Death from continued corporeal existence!"

"Eternity, you know that I now and always have deferred to you as power supreme! But I still contend that such as I should not die! Not yet!" said Galactus with a respectful dip of his purple helmeted head in regards to the only living entity larger than himself, both in stature and in pure cosmic power.

"Death?" Eternity's voice rumbled as its head-shape turned. "How say you?"

The silence was more ponderous than the compacted material of a neutron star as Death looked from Eternity to Galactus, who was now gazing at Death with his glowing cosmic eyes, before Death finally saying, "Very well, Eternity! Galactus may return to the realm of the living...but he must be willing to once again experience... The Hunger!"

Even though the very thought of The Hunger, which had plagued and pained him for billions of years, sent hesitant shivers down his mighty spine, Galactus nonetheless boomed, "I accept!"

Cupping grand hands containing all Space-Time about the Devourer of Worlds...

END OF CHAPTER 4


	5. CONCLUSION EPILOGUE

CONCLUSION EPILOGUE

The chilled airlessness of space was a welcome sensation to the nigh-immortal Galactus as he felt himself floating within the starry darkness of a void which he had called "home" for the entire existence of the current cosmos.

Once again...Galactus lived. Unfortunately, once again...Galactus hungered.

"Great Galactus," said a smaller voice, though filled with a majesty all its own, from nearby the massive force of nature who turned his huge head in its direction. "I have come to lead you to your worldship."

Galactus wasn't at all surprised to see...

"The Silver Surfer! Of all those who have been my herald, only you have truly understood such as I! So, of course, only you would come to take me...home!"

The small, gleaming figure on the space-time traveling board swooped effortlessly toward his former master so easily that one would believe him to have been born to it...rather than granted such a cosmos-spanning boon by Galactus himself.

"Come, mighty Galactus, we have far to travel...even tunneling through space-time...before reaching your worldship on the far side of the universe," the Silver Surfer said with a smile that gleamed as brightly as his skin, while gesturing toward the massive being about whom he streaked like a human surfer cresting some perfect wave.

"Lead the way, my second herald," Galactus said in his own cosmically booming voice, "somehow I do not believe I shall mind the voyage!"

Both relying upon the power cosmic, the two figures, one small on a gleaming board that allowed him to effortlessly spin and loop, the other a small mountain which moved, a swirling wormhole, cutting through space-and-time, formed to allow them safe, swift passage.

And, somewhere in another realm, Death conceded the shocking fact that, this once...she had lost.

END


End file.
